 Jane Kitchell, Chair of Senate Appropriations, and I want to welcome everyone to this joint House and Senate public hearing on the Governor's restatement of the fiscal year 2021 budget here from the Senate, Senator Westman, Senator Starr, Senator Sears, Senator Nitka, Senator Ash and myself, and I believe Senator McCormick will be joining us. And then after the House announcement, I have a testimony that I'll read that we did not receive because of technical difficulties last night. Thank you. I too would like to welcome you all to the second of our public hearings on the Governor's proposed budget. And the House appropriation members that are here with us today are representatives of Representative Hooper, Representative Townsend, Representative Feltas, Representative Lanford, Representative Yacovoni, Representative Jessup, Representative Conquest, Representative Myers, and Representative Fagan. And there may be a couple that are in and out due to commitments in another committee, but the majority of us will always be here. Representative Fagan, do you want to please explain the how we will proceed with timing? Good afternoon. I'm Representative Peter Fagan. So today we will be listening intently as we did last night, as we do every public hearing to everything that you have to say. If you run out of time, however, or have supporting documents or both, please, please, submit to Teresa Otten at leg.state.vt.us. I'm going to spell it. It is T-U-T-T-O-N at leg.state.vt.us. Rest assured, we literally read everything in committee again to understand what it was that you were that you were speaking to us about and to make sure that everything is considered. So please send it in. We look forward to reading it again. Today, everyone will have two minutes to present to us at the 30-second mark approximately. I always try to wait until someone takes a quick breath because people are reading fast. I will cut in very quickly and say you have 30 seconds left or 20 seconds left or whatever when I can think I can get in. And then you will hear if you start running over, you're going to hear someone say thank you. And please wrap up very quickly. Senator Ketchall, I believe you have something to share. Yes. Thank you. I'm reading a statement from Michael Kaye, K-I-E-Y. It's the last name. And this is what he wanted for testimony. He wanted to participate last night, but technical difficulties he was not able to get in. Good evening. I'm Michael Kaye, citizen of Vermont. Since May 1994, I'm licensed to practice law in Vermont and New York. I've worked in private industry in the public sector. I support Governor Scott's proposal to provide at least 2 million to immigrant families in Vermont who are excluded from the stimulus payments. My experience with the migrant community is shaped significantly by volunteer legal work in May 2015 for migrant women and children at the private jail for them in Dilly, Texas. There I learned about the conditions that drove families to leave homes and other family members to seek relief from cruel, moral and economic conditions. The question today is whether we will consciously make the value judgment that the immigrant families that sustain our dairy industry will continue to be left out, left out even though by any standard they are essential workers. They toil in isolation for 60 plus hours a week in extreme conditions. Some Vermonters don't know they exist, yet they are humans who work to shape. What those who advertise Vermont call the Vermont mystique are working landscapes, our greens, our green landscapes of green and cows in the pasture. The spiritual writings that continue to shape me make it clear that we all share a common bond of equal creation. We are part of a spiritual family. If you share this bond, our actions and all our affairs will reveal whether this conviction is real or only lip service. Immigrant families are our neighbors. Spanish on Nuevos vecinos. COVID-19 gives our public leaders this opportunity to include immigrant families in our community. It's the right thing to do and they are part of our state economy. I urge you to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Kitchell. So we will start with Chris Donnelly and Andrew Nuss will follow. Welcome, Chris. There you go. Good afternoon. My name is Chris Donnelly. I work with the Champlain Housing Trust and I'm here representing the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition. I appreciate your support of the work carried out in committees across the state with the dollars allocated to VHCB. The land conserved housing built to special places in and outside of our communities are lasting assets for generations of Vermonters. Please support the VHCB budget appropriation of $10.5 million supplemented through the capital bill to the extent that one-time dollars are available. The grant writing program that's been so successful should be supported at $75,000 to help and benefit communities across the state. Furthermore, your allocation earlier this summer of CRF dollars in response to the pandemic will be transformational in partnership with community groups across the state. VHCB has already made $30 million of grants to support shelters and create housing opportunity to move people out of homelessness. This one-time infusion, as you know, had to happen fast and it has. So thank you. People I talk to around the country are amazed at what we've all done. I want to add that as we come out of this crisis, I have three thoughts to keep in mind. One is that the economic situation for working class and low income people is likely to be worse and the economic recovery for those households will take longer and be harder. We think the need for affordable housing will grow. The housing market is also going to heat up as people flee urban areas south of here as more companies realize that the workforce can work remotely. We're seeing this already in the southern parts of the state that has that has the possibility of pricing working from honors out of the market. I want to say that VHCB will be one of the best tools that you have for economic recovery, whether it's investment in conserving land or building housing, these long term assets we create that put people to work and strengthen our communities. We have projects ready to go as soon as resources are available. So again, thank you for your commitment to VHCB and I encourage you to support the governor's recommendation and hopefully you'll be able to add the one-time funding for grant writing support that's been so successful. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Andrew Nuss and Ernest Caswell will follow. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. Hi and thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on the governor's proposed budget. My name is Andrew Nuss. I'm a clinician and supervisor at the Clara Martin Center, the designated agency for the Orange County area. I often think that designated agencies are sort of an invisible safety net that provided invaluable and essential service, but which do so in communities that know little of how they are served by them. Our motto is people helping people. What this looks like is that people, children, families, working and non-working adults with a wide range of issues and challenges, mental health, substance abuse or both come to us when they're in need of help. It could be in a crisis in the middle of the night that leads to a call to our emergency service, an emerging mental illness in a young adult, a child with challenging behaviors, someone grappling with substance abuse issues, or someone adjusting to the innumerable unexpected crises that can emerge in a life, illness, death of a loved one, a job loss, or as we currently see a pandemic that's having a profound impact on people's ability to maintain stability. I'm proud to say that we've continued to deliver all of these services effectively through this pandemic. As we go forward with no clear end in sight, and to the pandemic and its innumerable repercussions, our system will be more stressed and more people will be reaching out to us for help. Adequate funding from the state is essential to enable us to deliver these services. The current budget proposed by the governor calls for level funding. This term is a bit of a misnomer because it doesn't account for cost of living increases for staff and additional costs associated with providing services during the pandemic. Andrew, 28 seconds. Therefore, we're crusting a 3% increase in funding to designated agencies to allow us to effectively deliver essential services to the community during a state and national crisis. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Ernest Coswell and Courtney Anderson will follow. Ernest is not in the waiting rooms, but Courtney is here and ready. Okay, and then Beth Sightler will follow. Welcome, Courtney. Are you here? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. Great. My name is Courtney Anderson, and I am the nutrition director for the Southwestern Vermont Council on Aging. I'm speaking today on behalf of the five area agencies on aging to ask that you please increase funding for home and community-based providers to ensure that older Vermonters have the flexibility and care they need to age in their homes with dignity and health. These increases are needed for parity with nursing home annual increases. Also, to increase funding by $1 million to more adequately cover the costs of providing meals and allow us to continue paying the increased rates through the end of the fiscal year. Nutrition program supports the nutritional health and independence of older Vermonters, especially now as we recover from COVID-19. These services are very important to ensure that older Vermonters have the support they need to stay healthy. Extra federal funding has been helping, but the state of Vermont needs to continue the commitment for nutrition programs for our older population. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the AAA meal delivery systems have been significantly impacted. Not only are we seeing a large increase in the number of meals and clients served, which is estimated to be around 25 to 30 percent, our providers are also facing increased costs due to food and supply shortages, not to mention the increase in staff or volunteer time to keep up with the constant demand. Many of our meal providers across the state are trying to continue supporting their local farmers, which costs more time and resources to prepare the local foods, but in return supports our local economy. We're lucky to have such incredible providers, their can-do attitude is truly remarkable in how they take care of their community. So many of the clients I've spoken to have underlying health conditions and are fearful of leaving their homes due to COVID-19, which is why they've signed up for meals on meals in the first place. We must remember that through this program, most clients are only receiving one meal a day, which is not enough. I try to put myself in their shoes and think of how I would feel living off one meal a day. Nutrition is health, and we must remember that everyone benefits when we support our older remoders and their nutritional needs. Thank you for the opportunity for me to address these two critical requests and for your consideration within the state budget. Thank you, Courtney. Beth Seitler and Chloe Leary will follow. Hi, everybody. Welcome. Hi, I'm Beth Seitler. I'm the executive director at Champlain Community Services, and I'm also the president of the Vermont Care Network. Appreciate you and your time and the work that you're doing, as well as our collaboration with the state of Vermont. And while we're not facing a budget cut this year, as you're well aware, a level-funded budget is a cut for services to us, especially at this critical time. We are requesting, as my colleagues have said, a 3% increase for the essential mental health and developmental disabilities system. I understand, of course, that there's a lot of pressure on the budget this year, but I want to explain to you why we're asking for this. The risk of acquiring COVID-19 is no less today than it was in mid-March, and the people who we're serving are continuing to be at a very high risk. Most of our decisions these days have to do with finding dollars to keep people safe, and every one of my decisions right now seems existential. Our agencies have never stopped caring about how to deliver meaningful, creative, indeed, life-saving, and flexible programs. It's important to remember that we're both a celebrated service system and an exceptionally complex, often unrecognized, long-term healthcare system. Since the start of the pandemic, we've encountered new costs around personnel, training, safety, IT, programming, crisis, you're aware, healthcare, and infrastructure. Agencies have set up tents, provided safety equipment, developed personalized services, provided flexibilities for staff who are hit hard by the pandemic, developed safety and crisis protocols and locations, and taken on significant financial risk in the process. Beth, 19 seconds. In the last quarter, FY20, agencies access needed federal and state CRF dollars and appreciated short-term flexibilities provided by the state. These flexibilities and tomorrow and access to future supports is not guaranteed. I understand I'm asking at a difficult time. These reminders cannot be put at further risk. Thank you. Thank you, Beth. Chloe Leary and Christine Hallquist will follow. Chloe, are you in the waiting room? Madam Chair, by apologies, I missed Chloe and I went right to Christine, but I will go get Chloe right now. Okay, so should we move to Christine in the meantime? Please. Welcome, Christine. Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak to the governor's budget. I'm speaking on behalf of NAK, the NAK community broadband community union district that covers 31 towns in northern Vermont. And I'm speaking specifically to the $2 million allocation. And what I want to talk about is, of course, strengthening the community union districts. The CUDs are, I think, a very excellent tool that Vermont has developed for bringing broadband to all rover monitors. And I would encourage the legislature to really strengthen those CUDs, first of all, by any grant money from the state should be directed for those through the CUDs, because we're concerned about the incumbent carriers actually reducing, really cherry picking the best areas, and then reducing our business case. And also, as the CUDs, we can actually help answer a lot of the questions and take some of the heat off the legislature. I'll talk some of the problems that surfaced with the line extension customer assistance program, which we hope to address moving forward. That program by the way, was an excellent program. And really, the problems came up because there was so much demand. And because there was such a short window, and I understand why that window exists, the actual cable carriers could not, engineering departments could not handle the volume of calls. So we need six months to carry out a program like that. And the other thing that really surfaced was the polls and wires database is wholly inadequate that we have. So we're going to be looking in the future to build a statewide polls and wires database. We're also going to be looking at what are called IRUs, Indefeasible Rights of Use, to actually participate and utilize state fiber assets. But again, strengthen the CUDs, count on the CUDs, and direct money through the CUDs so we can really build that local community base to improve the utilization state assets. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Christine. Chloe Leary and Charles Martin will follow. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can, Chloe. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I'm Chloe Leary. I'm the executive director of the Winston Proudy Center in Brattleboro. Investing in our younger citizens is one of the most important investments we can make for the long-term health of our state. And to that end, I want to highlight what is not in the budget, which is full funding for children's integrated services for CIS. One of the primary mechanisms, this is one of the primary mechanisms our state government uses to help ensure optimal development for young children. A cost study by the Agency of Human Services demonstrates that CIS needs an additional two million dollars to be funded appropriately across the state. Now, this is based on pre-COVID numbers. We anticipate the case load to go up as we pay the price for children and families being isolated, unable to go to school and to work. Our organization is part of a statewide network of community-based agencies that provide and monitor CIS, which has been level-funded for over a decade. This has the effect of cutting services in the face of rising costs, such as health care and health insurance. So, for instance, we are unable to compete successfully for the qualified staff we need when our compensation and benefits can't keep pace with the market. We, as an organization, have lost several developmental educators who provide special education to children birth to age three through early intervention because they go to the school system where they can make more money, they have better benefits, and they get the summer off. So, ironically, though, these special educators may end up serving children who would not need to continue on to special education over the age of three of early intervention and CIS were fully funded. And this is a primary example of how underfunding CIS ends up costing the state and taxpayers more in the long run. I understand that we are in tight budgetary times and I am grateful not to see I cut NCIS in the budget. I understand the upcoming fiscal years are potentially very bleak and I urge you to remember the Children's Integrated Services is a program that will ultimately save us money in multiple ways. Please consider fully funding CIS now so we do not widen the gap. Thank you. Thank you, Chloe. Charles Martin and David Kerry will follow. Charles, there you are, Charles. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. Thank you. For the record, I'm Charles Martin, Government Affairs Director for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. My remarks today are going to be informed by the Vermont Chamber's 1200 members, mainly small businesses, who represent virtually every sector of Vermont's business community. I want to start by thanking the legislature for their incredibly important work in June. The expeditious advancement of relief funding was and continues to be essential to the small business community in Vermont. In the interest of time, I'm going to focus specifically on the CRF proposal and the Governor's budget. The Vermont Chamber supports the proposed use of $133 million for additional economic relief purposes to support this funding because while some of Vermont's economy continues to reopen, other sectors like hospitality remain devastated. Lodging restaurant entities have gone to incredible lengths to overhaul regular operating practices in order to protect their customers and staff while fully complying with local, state, and federal health requirements. The majority of restrictions on these sectors will remain in place for the foreseeable future, as will the corresponding revenue losses. According to the Federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, tourism is 6% percent of Vermont's GDP, which places Vermont among the top five tourism-dependent state economies. Tom Cavett's August 12 economic review and economic forecast show that the hospitality industry has felt a distinct impact as a result of the travel and operating restrictions implemented to keep us safe. Tourism also provides their state with over 32,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue. If these businesses are permitted to fail, it will not only devastate our rural communities, but also weaken the long-term economic stability of Vermont. This is why we are particularly encouraged by the proposed use of $50 million for targeted hospitality and tourism grant funds. Providing this funding will contribute to sustaining these entities through the fall and winter when they'll have to reduce operations even further. Charles, 25 seconds. Thank you. We also acknowledge that many businesses like sole proprietors new and growth businesses were left behind by the original grant package. This is why we additionally would like to emphasize our support for the proposed use of $23 million for expanded business relief grants designed to provide resources for those small businesses. We hope the legislature will advance these in the entirety of the economic relief proposal and we look forward to remaining a resource as the conversation develops. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. Next we have David Carey and by Lauren Glenn Davichian. David, are you behind the baseball player? There we go. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Welcome. Actually it was cricket, not baseball, but no problem. Ladies and gentlemen, I speak for you this afternoon to ask for your continued support financially of the initiative put forward a couple of years ago by Vermont Food Bank called Vermontus Feeding Vermontus. As the title suggests, this food program encourages Vermont farmers to grow and sell their products locally. In today's situation, despite COVID-19, Vermont Food Bankage volunteers and employees continue to demonstrate daily, daily the capacity to get good food to those most in need. At the same time during this pandemic, via the Vermontus Feeding Vermontus program, our farmers have been able to sell their products directly to their pantries and food shelves in all corners of the state. This program continues to provide fresh, healthy food to those who suffer from hunger in Vermont. Speaking personally, before COVID-19, along with other members of St. Luke's Episcopal Church here in Chester, Vermont, we've been volunteering monthly to help with the Food Bank distribution center in Brattlebrook. However, all that we've been sorting there is processed food and even though Vermont Food Bank is extremely grateful for those many donations, would it not be even better to have more locally grown fresh items to sort and pack? I'm sure that everyone here this afternoon would agree that the more nutritious a gift of food is, the better for all concern. And Vermontus Feeding Vermontus is able to do exactly that. It supplies healthy, nutritious, locally grown food from our Vermont farmers directly to those most in need. With the $500,000 we're requesting, can you just imagine the difference it makes and will continue to make in the health, welfare and food security for many of our most vulnerable citizens? David, 20 seconds. Thank you. I urge you to continue to support, to continue to fund and thus to acknowledge the outstanding work of the Vermontus Feeding Vermontus program. Thank you very much for your attention and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Thanks again. Thank you, David. Lauren, Glenn, DeVish, I hope I pronounced that correctly and Jason Domini will follow. Thank you, start video. Thank you. There you are. Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you, Madam Chair and Senator Kitchell. My name is Lauren Glendavidian and I am the Executive Director of CCTV Center for Media and Democracy and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Vermont Access Network. You are aware of the study that we requested that was included in H966 to look at alternative funding for public educational and government access and that study was given to the agency of commerce and community development to fund with the COVID relief funds. The agency determined that it was not eligible for COVID relief funds so you will find it now included in the governor's budget to the tune of a one-time request of up to $100,000. We hope that you will continue your support as you have in this new, in this budget and also to consider clarifying the language so that it better reflects the intent of the study and that is a to assess the communication provider's use of the public rights of way to determine if there is any revenue that we could accrue from those right-of-way assessments that would benefit not only public access but potentially the state coffers and other public benefits and that this study looked closely at examples from other jurisdictions and to prepare financial models and policy recommendations for this potential new direction alternative funding for PEG access which now relies on the cable franchise feeds and to also conduct a business assessment of the PEG access management organizations to determine if we can be more efficient and effective and to submit the report by December 21st 2020. So thank you very much for your consideration and we're happy to provide any additional information that you may require. Thank you. Thank you very much. Jason is not here so we're going to move to Graham. Graham are you in the what there you are you're in the waiting room and I'm not going to attempt your last name I need you to help me with that please. Hi folks thanks for inviting me in and thank you for the opportunity to offer the comments thank you for the diligent work of the appropriations committees and really the entire legislature throughout the pandemic. You would have often seen me more in my role at rural Vermont as the policy director my name is Graham Uninks Rufinak but I was actually on friend to leave for a bit of time so I'm glad to be back and see some of your faces again. So as I said I'm the policy director at rural Vermont I'm a farmer as well and I'm a parent now. So I'm here with two primary messages one is to encourage both both appropriations committees the entire legislature to support the governor's proposal to allocate the two million that other callers have spoken to in state funds to provide parity in COVID relief for Vermont's immigrants population. You know many of these folks were deemed essential workers at the start of the pandemic they were also deemed ineligible because of their status to receive the federal COVID stimulus checks like the rest of us and I really see this as an opportunity for the state of Vermont and legislature to rectify this inequity but it will require an increase from the two million dollars to approximately five million dollars that migrant justice and other groups are are estimating. I really think that in these times of amplified inequities of explicit xenophobia and racism embodied and encouraged by our federal government and of these particular community members facing forced deportation and detention it's critical that we do everything we can to increase the amount recommended by the administration so we can accomplish even this baseline response to this discrimination and marginalization and the rest of my time I think I'd like to speak to our hope that these committees also accept the recommendations that we imagine will be forthcoming from the agricultural committees which make these particular technical amendments to the COVID relief funding programs created in June to help non-dairy farms and other agricultural and food businesses. 19 seconds Graham thank you as one of these farms you know we face unique and unprecedented disruptions in markets in supplying distribution chains and childcare and often increased demand which folks have worked really hard to meet. These folks are critical infrastructure they weren't included in national efforts so we'd really appreciate you to fix these technical changes and thank you for the time today take care. Thank you Graham. Next we have Yuriel Calvo and we have Abel Luna and Will Lembeck who will serve as interpreters so Yuriel. Hi everyone yeah my name is Abel I will be interpreting Will it's not here it is Ignacio and Yuriel that I'm going to be doing the presentation. Uriel is having some technical issues the system is not allowing him to to login but yeah we'll start with Jose Ignacio and then we go. Okay so we'll start with Jose welcome and then Teresa will you work with to see if we get Yuriel in he's I see his hand is raised but I don't know if he's able to get in so let's start with Jose please. Welcome. Good afternoon my name is Jose Ignacio I'm a dairy farm worker in the state of Vermont and I'm also part of migrant justice but doesn't mean to be an essential to be essential and to be an immigrant working in the state of Vermont during the during the pandemic it means fear. Fear that if you get sick you're going to lose your job that you're going to be kicked out of the farm and you will have no place to leave or work if you get sick you know that you're excluded from every type of medical coverage and going to the doctor is not an option because the visit to the doctor can add up to thousands of dollars we simply don't have the money in our packets because that's where it's going to be coming from so how are we going to sustain our families if we continue to be excluded from the financial support that everyone else is getting except us the migrant farm workers. I believe in Vermont for years now and I want to continue to leave with a quick question whether you can stay in contact with the state of Vermont for a year and to sign up for the agency in Vermont. I believe in Vermont for years now and I want to continue to leave with the state of Vermont continue to live here in this state and work here as well in this state that we have held together to build and to do that the state needs to be more inclusive and more equitable. The fact that the governor proposed of $2 million is simply not enough. There are thousands of migrant workers who can be here today for many reasons and one of them is fear. The migrant community is working in farms, hotels, the restaurant industry, agriculture and many other jobs that have shut down during the pandemic and many people so that you know don't have a way to eat or even to pay rent. For esta razón es importante que si van a dar algo seamos equitativos y que nos toque a todos los 1200 que no solo algún también que no se queden afuera las personas que están casada con alguien que si tienen papeles que también les toque el apoyo. This is why we're here today because it's important that we all get the $1,200 support not just some as we have seen so far. Also the U.S. citizens that are married to an immigrant should also not be excluded. This is why we are asking you all to take this into account and to raise the $2 million to $5 million because we are all part of Vermont. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I see Uriel has made it, you are now connected, if you would just unmute your microphone. Welcome. Hola Uriel, ya estás ahí, si quieres nada más quitarte de mudo y cuando estés listo, empezamos. Listo. Welcome. Puedes empezar. Hola qué tal, mi nombre es Uriel, soy parte del Comité de Coordinación de Justicia de Migrante y soy trabajador de un rancho lechero acá en Vermont. Durante la pandemia lo único que se nos reconoció fue la palabra de ser trabajador esencial, pero no solo es de llamarnos esenciales y que después el Estado nos abandone a nuestra suerte y quieran tapar el sol con un dedo, sino que lo demuestren con hechos no solo con palabras. Good afternoon everyone, my name is Uriel, I am part of Migrant Justice Coordinating Committee and also I work on a dairy farm here in the state of Vermont. During the pandemic the only thing that we migrant workers got recognized for was the word of being essential, nothing else, but it is not just about calling us essential and then have the state not care about us, abandoning on us to our luck and turning the blind eye pretending nothing is happening. And so the state needs to take action and demonstrate this with concrete steps. En este estado como trabajadores migrantes, sostenemos con nuestra labor a restaurantes, hospitales, escuelas, agriculturas y otras industrias más. We are workers with our hard work and our labor, we sustain many of the Vermont industries such as restaurants, hospitals, schools, agriculture and many others. Yo llevo viviendo tres años en este estado, soy parte de la comunidad, contribuyo a este estado y a esta comunidad. Aparte de eso con mi trabajo estoy aportando a la economía de Vermont. I have been living here in this state for three years. I am part of the community too. I contribute to this community as well and to this state with our jobs, the migrant community, we all contribute to the overall health and to the economy of Vermont. Trabajo 12 horas ordiñando las vacas, sabemos que en este estado el invierno es duro, que la temperatura es negativa, a las dos o tres de la mañana tenemos que aguantar y por qué ellos no nos pueden ver. I worked 12 hours in the night shift, milking cows and we all know that Vermont winters are really rough, temperature drops to negative digits and all the migrant workers, as migrant workers, we have to get up and mill the cows because the cows are not going to mill themselves. Las vacas no se ordeñan solas. Ahora en estos días el gobernador propuso la cantidad de dos millones, no creo que alcanzen para ser repartido a los migrantes. Again cows won't mill themselves and so the government proposes a $2 million support for the migrant communities, but that is not enough the way we see it. Ustedes saben que Vermont puede hacer mucho más por eso por nosotros y corregir los errores del gobierno federal. You all know better that we all know that Vermont can do much better and much more for the migrant community and make up for the mistakes that the federal government did by excluding us. Queremos que todo nuestro arduo trabajo de día a día sea reconocido, por eso estamos aquí pidiendo cinco millones, gracias, esperamos contar con su apoyo ya que será, ya que sería muy esencial. We want all of our hard work to be recognized and this is why we are here asking to raise the amount of $2 million to $5 million. Thank you for your time and we all hope to count on your support since it is very essential. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from Julie Tesler followed by Jane Van Buren. This is Julie Tesler from Vermont Care Partners and representing 16 designated agencies. These agencies were able to step up to the plate to meet COVID-19 needs thanks to the legislature, the administration, the flexibilities and the funding that you provided for us made all the difference. Thank you. We're able to keep people safe, bed, housed, clinically supported, protected and healthy. Our staff really did amazing work. They were creative and had a can-do attitude. We need a 3% rate increase to continue to provide these services. The mental health pandemic is going to last longer than the COVID-19 pandemic. That's just the way it is with natural disasters that it has a lasting impact. In fact, all of our monitors are feeling a higher level of anxiety, loneliness, homelessness, food insecurity, and financial distress. We're seeing this also with our developmental disability population that are feeling the isolation and confinement. During the early stages of the pandemic, we weren't able to maintain the services at the same level, but we figured it out just like you have. We're doing telehealth, video conferencing, and now we're phasing back in the in-home, in-person services, community-based services, but this is costing additional funding. We're requiring tents and IT, umbrellas, extra training, safety protocols, and it's more resource-intensive. We're also having workforce challenges, as some of the staff has said, this is it. I'm done. I'm going to retire now. Or I can't work because of health care needs of myself. I love ones. Julie, 30 seconds. The staff, it costs money to do that, and sometimes we have to offer higher compensation packages to attract them, plus health benefits are going up. And finally, some of our school contracts are not the same. So we're asking that you fully fund us, not level fund us. And now is the time where we really need your support. Thank you for listening, and I have submitted some written information up here. Thanks. Thank you, Julie. Jane Van Buren and Karen will follow. Welcome, Jane. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening to my testimony, which today is on the impact of moving CCFAP, which is financial assistance for eligibility determination from the community service providers. Child Care Resource, which I'm the executive director, is one of 12 community child care support agencies around the state that handle eligibility determination for families applying for this financial assistance for child care. In FY20, CCR reviewed 1,786 applications within 30 days of receipt. The two case managers we have on staff each have a case load of over 500. And this work has increased in FY20 for subsidy for their school-aged children as well as their young children. Being in the community is critical to the families we serve in Chittenden County. For example, we work closely with the immigrant and refugee population and their advocates and process applications for parents for whom English is not their primary language. Every weekday before COVID, we welcome numerous clients into the office to pick up or drop off an application or to seek assistance in completing the CCFAP paperwork. They were greeted by staff, and given the intention they required, including referral to additional services that we offer at CCR, for example, referral to a child care center or to a specialized child care case manager. Since March of 2020, when we've gone remote, we have been assisting families on the phone and through email and sometimes in the driveway of our building. Seeking and renewing subsidy assistance is personal and stressful. The application is detailed, and parents are nervous about the affordability of care and whether they'll be able to meet their co-pay. Jane, 22 seconds. Thank you. Coming to CCR for assistance is safe. It's not scary. And the model we have developed at the community level is successful. I urge you to keep this service in the community where it belongs. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jane. Someone is wrestling some paper. I'm not sure who that is. Might have been me. I might have been nervous. Thank you, Jane. We have Karen Lafayette and Linda. Which last follow to follow? Good afternoon, committees. I'm speaking today for the Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council, and we are celebrating 47 years of representing the interests of low income Vermonters. First, let me say I'm really glad to live in Vermont during this pandemic. Let me thank you for your work. We greatly appreciate that this legislature and the state has done to respond to the COVID pandemic and target the most pressing needs in all sectors with the first round of CRF funds in the quarter one budget. I hope and I know you will continue to address the neediest among us and begin to restore some stability and opportunities for all Vermonters. Working families, low income Vermonters, those with disabilities, elders, and those economically disadvantaged to begin with have been hit especially hard ever since the COVID pandemic hit. Before COVID hit, more than 25% of Vermont households were one layoff or a serious medical incident away from falling before the poverty line. Reach up families, often on the verge of crisis, are at risk of eviction, loss of their transportation, utility shutoffs, and so on. A number of recovery programs are not available to the poorest Vermonters. Many low income working Vermonters have lost their jobs or remain on the front lines but are in the eligibility to collect hazard pay. Those families with disabilities have struggled to access food and services and a series of difficulties to have meaningful participation and remote learning at schools. We support a number of the programs that have provided relief during the health and economic crisis and we support maintaining and increasing funding for the safety net programs and those that offer opportunity to recover. Karen, 17 seconds. Thank you. I will be sending some written comments in. Hopefully, some of the new federal aid will be forthcoming and loosening of restrictions in the longer time to use these funds. But to the extent that we can, we should try to continue to offer opportunities to recovery and do things different in the long term. And I will send you my list of those programs that you have been funding and that we hope you will continue to fund past the December 30th deadline. Thank you very much. Thank you, Karen. Linda, you are up and Matt Levin will follow. Welcome, Linda. Linda, you need to unmute and provide your video if you could. I'm nudging Matt, Chair. I think she's coming. There you go. For some reason, Zoom bumped me off. My name is Linda Woodchuck and I'm the Executive Director of Bennington Project Independence and I'm also the President of the Vermont Association of Adult Day Services. The members of the Vermont Association of Adult Day Services and myself would like to thank you very much for your support of adult day programs in the first quarter budget. The CRF appropriation we received in July was critical in helping our programs remain viable during this pandemic and assisted us with preparation so that we may be able to reopen when it is safe to do so. We remain closed for in-person services at this time, but are working on providing a new model of adult day services without walls, such as online and telephonic support and services for our participants and their families. We are asking that the FY21 budget include the same CRF appropriation as in the first quarter budget, 2.45 million to support adult day programs through December. Beyond December, whether we are able to reopen or not for in-person services, we will continue to need state financial support to help us remain viable. Even when we do reopen, we will not be immediately at 100% capacity. We are anticipating needing assistance through the remainder of the fiscal year. While we appreciate that the governor's recommended budget level funds Medicaid reimbursement rates and does not cut them, our reimbursement rate, as you are aware, is only 1672 an hour for the comprehensive services we provide. Whether we are operating at 100% or 50% capacity, we are not going to be able to continue to provide these comprehensive services at this rate. Our fixed costs exceed that reimbursement level. And impact our ability to attract and maintain qualified personnel. We are asking for a 2.45 million dollar CRF appropriation to support adult day programs through December of 2020 and continue to support adult day programs from January through June of 21. Thank you for your consideration of our request. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Matt Levin and Molly Anderson will follow. Good afternoon. My name is Matt Levin and I'm the executive director of the Vermont Early Childhood Advocacy Alliance. I am asking you today to continue funding for special accommodation grants or SAG, a small program that is one of many efforts linked together through our state's Innovative Children's Integrated Services Network. You'll hear about the need to fund the overall CIS program from others in these hearings and through other means. The SAG program specifically makes it possible for children with special needs, medical, behavioral, social, emotional, et cetera, to participate in child care programs. With this extra support, children are then able to participate and benefit from high quality early care and learning settings. And in turn, their parents are able to work. We supported your efforts in the first FY20 Budget Adjustment Act, which restored $153,000 in SAG funding, not full funding, but enough for the program to continue. The SAG grants have always been in high demand across the state, and the roughly $350,000 in annual fiscal year funding that has traditionally been available was usually depleted by February or March. These grants are still badly needed, despite or maybe because of the changes in the child care system brought about by the pandemic. Given current budget realities, we ask that you include at least $250,000 in funding for the SAG program in the FY21 Budget. This relatively small amount of funding would have a very large impact on the lives of many children and families. In one case, SAG funding this summer has allowed a program in Chittenden County to hire an aide to provide intensive intervention so that two children in their child room with significant behavioral issues will be able to heal and develop skills to ensure healthier and more productive long-term outcomes without disrupting the development of others. Outcomes will improve for all 10 students, their families, and the teachers working in the classroom. I've provided another in-depth story about the impact of SAGs in my written testimony. Please consider funding this important program in the FY21 Budget. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. We have Molly Anderson, and then Paul Costello will follow. And Pete. Molly, you're ready. Thank you for allowing me to speak on the proposed budget. I work for Middlebury College as a professor of food studies, but this testimony is my own opinion and not an official statement by Middlebury College. It's hard to speak more forcefully and poignantly than Jose Ignacio de la Cruz and Uriel Calvo from Migrant Justice, but I bring academic and field experience over three decades at the state, national, and international levels to support their testimony. I want to speak in favor of raising the $2 million that Governor Scott proposed for the fiscal year 2021 budget for the immigrant family's coronavirus relief fund to $5 million. The proposed $2 million is a good start, but it's simply not enough. These workers deserve the same support that other people in the United States got at the beginning of the summer. $1,200 per adult plus $500 for every child in the household, yet they have been excluded unfairly from any federal COVID relief so far. Immigrant farm workers, as I'm sure you know, are the backbone of the dairy industry, working long hours on jobs that US citizens don't want because they're too difficult and demanding. They get low wages. They don't get hazard pay or weekends off or health insurance. We need to provide full funding to COVID relief to recognize and support the vital work that they're doing for Vermont. Thank you very much. Thank you, Molly. Paul Costello and Ruby Baker will follow. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Paul Costello from Vermont Council on Rural Development. I'm speaking for the Working Lands Partnership and the Working Lands Coalition. The Working Lands investments are the key instrument that the state supports enterprise transitions in farm and forest businesses, value added development, diversification, creative innovation for new markets, strengthen value chains, new jobs, rural economic renewal. Deeply appreciate the investments through CARES funding for dairies and for non-dairy farms and for forest products businesses and to cover losses. The investments from CARES that were intended for Working Lands investment have been combined in some ways with those funds to support businesses that have had losses without competition around innovation and market transformation. In this challenging time, we're operating from a point of crisis and that's the way it seems to be managed. But the state resource of $5.95, which is in the governor's budget now, is a starting point to think about how we help businesses move through this crisis into recovery, especially in a time where we're reinventing the marketplace, we're reinventing products, we're looking at a number of farms that are going to need to transition their operations and the essential work that needs to happen for the renewal of our rural economy post COVID. It's so important that we go beyond that $5.95 in this budget. Paul, 24 seconds. Yes, the state investments are the flexible investments that give the WELAB Board the ability to seed innovation and they're crucial for the future. So we hope that you can increase that figure beyond the $5.95. Thank you, Paul. Ruby Baker and Steve Teller will follow. Ruby, you need to unmute. There you are. Hi, thank you. And you can hear me. Hello, my name is Ruby Baker and I am the executive director for community of Vermont elders. And I wanna thank you for having us here today. Cove is a nonprofit organization that has been advocating for the rights of older Vermonters since 1984. Traditionally, we support government spending to build stronger supports and services that allow Vermonters to age in place, age in their community. And this is a commitment that you all have made as well and we really appreciate that. This year has been exceptional in many ways and it has really reinforced our conviction that a strong system of home and community-based services is vital to the health and wellness and safety of Vermonters as we age. As such, we support the increase that is listed in the budget for choices for care, 2.9 million and that will allow for, that will account for the increased pressures on our service providers who are really, really struggling. We would also encourage that you consider an additional increase for home and community-based services so that they can not just meet the current pressures but actually address increasing capacity. Friends and data show that it is likely many older Vermonters will be seeking supports and services as the pandemic continues, especially those who are vulnerable for reasons related to aging and disability. Specifically, we are very concerned about adult days and the need to ensure their long-term stability. Finally, we also support an expansion of safe and stable housing for low-income and older Vermonters as a vital piece of the puzzle that will be Vermont's recovery. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ruby. Steve Geller and Susan Aronoff will follow. I'm sorry, Madam Chair, who did you call? Steve Geller. Oh, I'm sorry, he actually sent written testimony and is not testifying today. Susan is in the meeting and waiting. Okay, Susan, we'll move to A.J. Hemmel. Hi, this is Susan Aronoff. I don't know. Hi. Yes, Susan, go ahead. Hi. First of all, I really want to thank you. We always start things we're taught to say thank you. But this time, I really haven't seen any of you since March 13th and a lot has happened since then. You passed a second budget adjustment. I had talked to you about DSR funds that seemed so long ago in the first budget adjustment. And you passed a lot of emergency relief and you passed the Health Provider Stabilization Fund and you've just done so much. So I really do sincerely want to thank you. And we've heard so many of you individual senators and specifically a shout out to Diane Lamper ask the questions that really matter. I do the policy work. I think I forgot to introduce myself. Susan Aronoff, on behalf of the Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council. And we are an agency entirely federally funded to advocate for Vermonters with developmental disabilities. And by our count, there are roughly around 85,000 Vermonters who would qualify under the federal definition. But we focus a lot on the 5,000 who received state services. And those 5,000 Vermonters and their families were so much better off during this pandemic because of the work that you have all done to stabilize our system, stabilize the designated agencies. And really one thing that hasn't been said enough because of all the work you've done and so many did before you specifically Senator Jane Kitchell. We don't have very many Vermonters with disabilities in institutional settings. 19 seconds, Susan. Country and you look at the loss of life of people with disabilities. It was in our institutional settings. So they never really count the lives that weren't lost. But we in Vermont are feeling very lucky for the lives that have been saved by our home and community-based system. We support the 3% increase and I'll send you materials and writing. But mostly right now I just wanna say thank you. Thank you, Susan. AHA Hamel is not in the waiting room. So we're going to move to Amy Wenger and then Carrie Becker. Amy. Hello, good afternoon members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee and thank you for your continued work so late in the year and during this time of the pandemic. My name is Amy Wenger. I'm the co-executive director of the Vermont Donor Milk Center and I'm also a maternal child health registered nurse. The Vermont Donor Milk Center is a 501C3 nonprofit run by volunteers. Our mission is to supply lifesaving nutrition and food security to infants in the Greater Vermont and Northern New York area by providing access regardless of ability to pay for pasteurized donor human breast milk. We offer crucial support and education of health benefits of breastfeeding for families working to establish healthy feeding routines and striving to reach their lactation goals. All pasteurized donor human milk dispensed from the Vermont Donor Milk Center is from a human milk banking association of North America approved milk bank. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic the need in our community for pasteurized donor human milk has more than doubled. Families who are giving birth during this unprecedented time are leaving the hospital early to keep their family safe. New parents are being left with decreased access to in-home support of themselves and their baby due to social distancing, fear of exposure and quarantine. This increases the already stressful postpartum period. We provide resources and donor milk to ensure that babies with medical needs still have access to recommended nutrition during this time. The AAP and World Health Organization recommend that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and continue. Maternity practice in Nutrition and Infant Care says in 2017, 13% of Vermont babies were supplemented by day two of life. The WICC 2020 says that 40% of Vermont babies are now supplemented. Since- Me mean 19 seconds. Thank you. We have sold over 2,000 bottles of pasteurized donor milk and 40% of our clients have needed some sort of financial assistance. No family has been denied financial assistance and many families have been unable to receive the amount needed. In order to continue at this rate, we are asking for $15,000 from the state to equalize nutrition for all babies in Vermont. Thank you. Thank you very much, Amy. We have Carrie Becker and then a list of the follow-up. Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity. I'm Carrie Becker. I live in Pittsburgh and I direct Mill River Unified Unions Afterschool and Summer Programs. Within this role, I oversee four licensed childcare sites which serve over 360 school-aged children. One community partner that's essential to the integrity of our programs and particularly our success in serving struggling families is the Child Care Financial Assistance Program or CCFAP and Referral Network. This program resides in DCF currently and offers ongoing direct personal support to families and providers, including schools with a priority on promoting equity and access to high-quality childcare from birth through age 12. The financial decisions this program makes regarding childcare subsidy are rarely solely about family income, but highly respectful of multiple parameters that must be navigated and ensuring effective placement of our infants and children in Vermont, many from families whose lives are continually in flux. The governor's proposed budget includes a shift of this program from DCF to the Economic Services Division. This proposal would reduce 21 current community specialists who provide 3,500 hours of monthly support to three staff positions providing 500 hours of monthly support as of January 1. This proposal implies that childcare decisions are strictly financial, a quantitative judgment if you will, drastically minimizing the critical significance of informed systemic and highly personalized factors in ensuring the success of services to our Vermont families. Gary, 28 seconds. Thank you. 10 years ago, this shift was in fact partially implemented though it was a financial and systemic failure given the absence of strategic planning which required months to remedy. Let's please not repeat this mistake and let's please in the interest of our Vermont families and children respect the integrity of the current successful system by allowing this critical program to remain under DCF. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you, Kerry. We have Elizabeth in the waiting room and Kathleen will follow. Elizabeth, you're ready. I am. I'm assuming you're Elizabeth Deutsch. Yes. Okay. Please. Sorry. I have Elizabeth out there. Thank you for letting me speak to you today. I come to you today not as a member of any organization. I'm just a concerned citizen. I would like to begin by praising the effective response by the state to the COVID-19 crisis. Budgets are a statement of priorities. How we allocate funds is how we show what we value. As a mother and a nurse for 24 years, I cannot help but wonder how we have led a different public health crisis unfold before our eyes for years. The dual crisis of substance use disorder and mental health issues have crippled many in this state. Entire families are impacted and yet we still see emergency departments overflowing and waiting lists for months for people to get treatment. Oftentimes the police are the only resource people have to call. We must stop criminalizing mental health issues. We would never treat any other diagnosis this way. It is inexcusable that we treat any diagnosis as a crime. A friend and neighbor who had to work today has asked me to share her experience as a parent, trying to get help for her child. And I quote her words, as the mother of a child suffering from mental health issues, I know what it is like to wait over six months for an appointment with child psych. I have been on the phone with the first call when they don't have anyone available to come out and help. I have sat in the emergency room with my child waiting for care. I have waited over five months for disability insurance determinations. I am not interested in hearing people talk about how much better things are than they used to be. Access to mental health care is still terrible. Brattleboro Retreat is in free fall, dealing with both budget issues and morale amongst staff. One of the first things UVM did was pause construction in their new psychiatric facility due to COVID budgetary concerns. We don't value the work of our social workers, therapists and first responders. If we did, we would be able to recruit and pay them more money. We have shown quite well, my own words again, we have shown quite well that when we want to solve a public health crisis, we can do so very effectively. Any second? Will we allow our emergency departments to continue to warehouse those with mental health issues, languishing for days, in departments ill-equipped to treat their needs? Will we force people with substance use disorder to quote white-knucklet without treatment? Will we leave patients and family members to try and figure out difficult and complex systems of coverage to get what limited treatment there is? If we have enough money to put police in schools, why do we not have enough counselors and nurses? Will we prioritize this crisis? Will we treat these diagnoses with the same resolve that we have shown in facing COVID? Please fund mental health. Thank you, Elizabeth. Kathleen, Murray is not in the waiting room, so we will move to Mark Hughes. I'm sorry, Madam Chair, I'm having technical difficulty. I had Mark Hughes and Matt Levin came in instead. And I don't see Mark Hughes anymore. Oh, there he is. Oh, he's gone again. I think he must be having technical difficulty. Theresa Mayer. I can hear him. I can hear him. Oh, did he hear? Oh, yay. Hi, folks. Welcome, Mark. Thank you, and thank you, Joint Committee, Madam Chairs. My name is Mark Hughes. I'm the Executive Director of Justice for All, as well as the coordinator, the state coordinator of the Racial Justice Alliance. I'm gonna intentionally yield the next 15 or 20 seconds. That was for George Floyd and Jacob Blake. I have a lot to tell you, and I couldn't afford to yield that time, because I have so much to tell you, but the cause was so important that I was willing to do it. It's hard right now for black indigenous people of color during this time, during this fight. And I'm not here to really talk that much about what the governor has put in this bill. I'm here to talk to you about what he didn't. First, I wanna hold up the migrant justice community and their request. They're not getting enough money. And the reason why we can relate so much to them is because almost everything they told you applies in the black indigenous people of color communities as well. Almost everything. So right now, I guess the only thing I would leave you with because it's almost ridiculous that we would just be given two minutes, but I understand the hearing process is that there are millions of dollars that should be invested to enable economic development and empowerment for black indigenous communities of color to address the unjustly gained political and economic power of whites and the continuing economic and other resource along those racial lines. So there's at least a million dollars that should go into tracking racial disparities through a statewide database to include the professional services in the capital infrastructure. Mark, can you wrap it up please? I sure can. Thank you. And there's at least another half a million dollars that should go into staffing the racial equity office as well as us funding the reparations task force. And then finally, the systemic racism community outreach and education and marijuana commission report on historical impact of marijuana on black people and poor communities in systemic racism impact on the cannabis industry should also be addressed. I thank you for your time. I ask that as you look at this bill that it be a moral document and that you to address these challenges that we're having in the black indigenous communities of color here across Vermont make it a moral document. Thanks. Have a great weekend. Thank you, Mark. And one of the witnesses is Lisa Morris. Are you here? Yes, you are here. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. My name is Theresa Marys and I'm an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Vermont. And I'm speaking on my own behalf as a researcher not on behalf of a large institution of the University of Vermont. Really wanted to thank the joint committee for allowing me to provide testimony on Governor Scott's proposed budget. And thank you all for your work during this really difficult time. I'm joining today to support the use of the state budget to support farm workers and other members of the immigrant community who have been excluded from federal stimulus programs through the Vermont immigrant families relief fund. And I'm asking you all to do the same but to also consider increasing the amount of that support. I've studied the contributions of farm workers in Vermont since 2011 when I was hired at UVM. And I recently have published a peer reviewed book on farm workers in our state and the dairy industry. And through the research that I've done I've learned so much about particular challenges that farm workers face even as they are really core to our state's economy and our community. And as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic the lives of farm workers and their livelihoods like all of ours have only gotten more difficult. But as we know they're facing particular challenges not only economic challenges but access to healthcare, access to food all of these basic needs. So we know that farm workers are essential workers but even more so they're essential members of our community and this is not only the case in Vermont but in a national context. And as we know they're also under continued attack that are legitimized by the highest levels of our federal government. Nearly 70% of Vermont's milk is produced on farms employing migrant farm workers. So there's little doubt that the state's economic well-being depends on these workers. However, these essential workers have not benefited from the federal stimulus programs even as their hard work keeps food on our tables. Through the immigrant families relief fund we have the opportunity to be a national leader on supporting immigrants in our state but the $2 million proposed is a start. It's not the entirety of what is needed. And as we've heard today from very powerful testimony by members of the farm worker community we need upwards of probably $5 million to support not only farm workers but all members of our community who have been excluded from the federal stimulus programs. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Teresa is there anyone else waiting in the waiting room? All the people in the waiting room have testified. Okay, so I think that this concludes our public hearing. Senator Kitchell, do you have any closing remarks? No, I just want to thank all the witnesses and members of the committee who are here today. This is obviously helpful as we make those key decisions as the testimony indicates there are many, many requests and in a fiscally difficult situation. So it's very helpful to have the testimony that we've received to help us make those decisions. So thank you to the witnesses and to the members of our committees. Thank you. I think, Teresa, we can go off live at this point. Going off live.